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Tag: Noll

Mamuth to Elephant (3)

Until now, we’ve looked at actions of groups (such as the T/I or PLR-group) or (transformation) monoids (such as Noll’s monoid) on special sets of musical elements, in particular the twelve pitch classes Z12, or the set of all 24 major and minor chords.

Elephant-lovers recognise such settings as objects in the presheaf topos on the one-object category M corresponding to the group or monoid. That is, we look at contravariant functors MSets.

Last time we’ve encountered the ‘Cube Dance Grap’ which depicts a particular relation among the major, minor, and augmented chords.

Recall that the twelve major chords (numbered for 1 to 12) are the ordered triples of tones in Z12 of the form (n,n+4,n+7) (such as the triangle on the left). The twelve minor chords (numbered from 13 to 24) are the ordered triples (n,n+3,n+7) (such as the middle triangle). The four augmented chords (numbered from 25 to 28) are the triples of the form (n,n+4,n+8) (such as the rightmost triangle).



The Cube Dance Graph relates two of these chords when they share two tones (pitch classes) whereas the remaining tones differ by a halftone.



Picture modified from this post.

We can separate this symmetric binary relation into three sub-relations: the extension of the P and L-operations on major and minor chords to the augmented ones (these are transformations), and the remaining relation U which connects the major and minor chords to the augmented chords (and which is not a transformation).

Binary relations on the same set can be composed, so we get a monoid M generated by the three relations P,L and U. The action of M on the 28 chords no longer gives us an ordinary presheaf (because U is not a transformation), but a relational presheaf as in the paper On the use of relational presheaves in transformational music theory by Alexandre Popoff.

That is, the action defines a contravariant functor MRel where Rel is the category (actually a 2-category) of sets, but with binary relations as morphisms (that is, Hom(X,Y) is all subsets of X×Y), and the natural notion of composition of such relations. The 2-morphism between relations is that of inclusion.

To compute with monoids generated by binary relations in GAP one needs to download, compile and load the package semigroups, and to represent the binary relations as partitioned binary relations as in the paper by Martin and Mazorchuk.

This is a bit more complicated than working with ordinary transformations:


P:=PBR([[-13],[-14],[-15],[-16],[-17],[-18],[-19],[-20],[-21],[-22],[-23],[-24],[-1],[-2],[-3],[-4],[-5],[-6],[-7],[-8],[-9],[-10],[-11],[-12],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28]],[[13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18],[19],[20],[21],[22],[23],[24],[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12],[25],[26],[27],[28]]);
L:=PBR([[-17],[-18],[-19],[-20],[-21],[-22],[-23],[-24],[-13],[-14],[-15],[-16],[-9],[-10],[-11],[-12],[-1],[-2],[-3],[-4],[-5],[-6],[-7],[-8],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28]],[[17],[18],[19],[20],[21],[22],[23],[24],[13],[14],[15],[16],[9],[10],[11],[12],[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[25],[26],[27],[28]]);
U:=PBR([[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-17,-21,-13,-4,-8,-12],[-5,-1,-9,-18,-14,-22],[-2,-6,-10,-15,-23,-19],[-24,-16,-20,-11,-3,-7]],[[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[17,21,13,4,8,12],[5,1,9,18,14,22],[2,6,10,15,23,19],[24,16,20,11,3,7]]);

But then, GAP quickly tells us that M is a monoid consisting of 40 elements.


gap> M:=Semigroup([P,L,U]);
gap> Size(M);
40

The Semigroups-package can also compute Green’s relations and tells us that there are seven such R-classes, four consisting of 6 elements, two of four, and one of eight elements. These are also visible in the Cayley graph, exactly as last time.

Or, if you prefer the cleaner picture of the Cayley graph from the paper Relational poly-Klumpenhouwer networks for transformational and voice-leading analysis by Popoff, Andreatta and Ehresmann.



This then allows us to compute the Heyting algebra of the subobject classifier, and all the Grothendieck topologies, at least for the ordinary presheaf topos of M-sets, not for the relational presheaves we need here.



We can consider the same binary relation on the larger set of triads when we add the suspended triads. These are the ordered triples in Z12 of the form (n,n+5,n+7), as in the rightmost triangle below.



There are twelve suspended chords (numbered from 29 to 40), so we now have a binary relation T on a set of 40 triads.

The relation T is too coarse, and the art is to subdivide T is disjoint sub-relations which are musically significant, between major and minor triads, between major/minor and augmented triads, and so on.

For each such partition we can then consider the monoids generated by these sub-relations.

In his paper, Popoff suggest relevant sub-relations P,L,TU,TV and TUTV of T which in our numbering of the 40 chords can be represented by these PBR’s (assuming I made no mistakes…ADDED march 24th: I did make a mistake in the definition of L, see comment by Alexandre Popoff, below the corect L):


P:=PBR([[-13],[-14],[-15],[-16],[-17],[-18],[-19],[-20],[-21],[-22],[-23],[-24],[-1],[-2],[-3],[-4],[-5],[-6],[-7],[-8],[-9],[-10],[-11],[-12],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-36],[-37],[-38],[-39],[-40],[-29],[-30],[-31],[-32],[-33],[-34],[-35]],[[13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18],[19],[20],[21],[22],[23],[24],[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12],[25],[26],[27],[28],[34],[35],[36],[37],[38],[39],[40],[29],[30],[31],[32],[33]]);
L:=PBR([[-17],[-18],[-19],[-20],[-21],[-22],[-23],[-24],[-13],[-14],[-15],[-16],[-9],[ -10],[-11],[-12],[-1],[-2],[-3],[-4],[-5],[-6],[-7],[-8],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-29], [-30],[-31],[-32],[-33],[-34],[-35],[-36],[-37],[-38],[-39],[-40]],[[17], [18], [19], [ 20],[21],[22],[23],[24],[13],[14],[15],[16],[9],[10],[11],[12],[1],[2],[3],[4],[5], [6], [7],[8],[25],[26],[27],[28],[29],[30],[31],[32],[33],[34],[35],[36],[37],[38],[39],[40] ]);
TU:=PBR([[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-25],[-26],[-27],[-28],[-4,-8,-12,-13,-17,-21],[-1,-5,-9,-14,-18,-22],[-2,-6,-10,-15,-19,-23],[-3,-7,-11,-16,-20,-24],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[]],[[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[25],[26],[27],[28],[4,8,12,13,17,21],[1,5,9,14,18,22],[2,6,10,15,19,23],[3,7,11,16,20,24],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[]]);
TV:=PBR([[-29],[-30],[-31],[-32],[-33],[-34],[-35],[-36],[-37],[-38],[-39],[-40],[-36],[-37],[-38],[-39],[-40],[-29],[-30],[-31],[-32],[-33],[-34],[-35],[],[],[],[],[-1,-18],[-2,-19],[-3,-20],[-4,-21],[-5,-22],[-6,-23],[-7,-24],[-8,-13],[-9,-14],[-10,-15],[-11,-16],[-12,-17]],[[29],[30],[31],[32],[33],[34],[35],[36],[37],[38],[39],[40],[36],[37],[38],[39],[40],[29],[30],[31],[32],[33],[34],[35],[],[],[],[],[1,18],[2,19],[3,20],[4,21],[5,22],[6,23],[7,24],[8,13],[9,14],[10,15],[11,16],[12,17]]);
TUV:=PBR([[-26,-29],[-27,-30],[-28,-31],[-25,-32],[-26,-33],[-27,-34],[-28,-35],[-25,-36],[-26,-37],[-27,-38],[-28,-39],[-25,-40],[-25,-36],[-26,-37],[-27,-38],[-28,-39],[-25,-40],[-26,-29],[-27,-30],[-28,-31],[-25,-32],[-26,-33],[-27,-34],[-28,-35],[-4,-8,-12,-13,-17,-21],[-1,-5,-9,-14,-18,-22],[-2,-6,-10,-15,-19,-23],[-3,-7,-11,-16,-20,-24],[-1,-18],[-2,-19],[-3,-20],[-4,-21],[-5,-22],[-6,-23],[-7,-24],[-8,-13],[-9,-14],[-10,-15],[-11,-16],[-12,-17]],[[26,29],[27,30],[28,31],[25,32],[26,33],[27,34],[28,35],[25,36],[26,37],[27,38],[28,39],[25,40],[25,36],[26,37],[27,38],[28,39],[25,40],[26,29],[27,30],[28,31],[25,32],[26,33],[27,34],[28,35],[4,8,12,13,17,21],[1,5,9,14,18,22],[2,6,10,15,19,23],[3,7,11,16,20,24],[1,18],[2,19],[3,20],[4,21],[5,22],[6,23],[7,24],[8,13],[9,14],[10,15],[11,16],[12,17]]);

The resulting monoids are huge:


gap> G:=Semigroup([P,L,TU,TV]);
gap> Size(G);
473293
gap> H:=Semigroup([P,L,TUV]);
gap> Size(H);
994624

In Popoff’s paper these monoids have sizes respectively 473,293 and 994,624. Strangely, the offset is in both cases 144=122. (Added march 24: with the correct L I get the same sizes as in Popoff’s paper).

Perhaps we should try to transform such relational presheaves to ordinary presheaves.

One approach is to use the Grothendieck construction and associate to a set with such a relational monoid action a directed graph, coloured by the elements of the monoid. That is, an object in the presheaf topos of the category
Misplaced &
and then we should consider the slice topos over the one-vertex bouquet graph with one loop for each element in the monoid.

If you want to have more details on the musical side of things, for example if you want to know what the opening twelve chords of “Take a Bow” by Muse have to do with the Cube Dance graph, here are some more papers:

A categorical generalization of Klumpenhouwer networks, A. Popoff, M. Andreatta and A. Ehresmann.

From K-nets to PK-nets: a categorical approach, A. Popoff, M. Andreatta and A. Ehresmann.

From a Categorical Point of View: K-Nets as Limit Denotators, G. Mazzola and M. Andreatta.

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Mamuth to Elephant (2)

Last time, we’ve viewed major and minor triads (chords) as inscribed triangles in a regular 12-gon.



If we move clockwise along the 12-gon, starting from the endpoint of the longest edge (the root of the chord, here the 0-vertex) the edges skip 3,2 and 4 vertices (for a major chord, here on the left the major 0-chord) or 2,3 and 4 vertices (for a minor chord, here on the right the minor 0-chord).

The symmetries of the 12-gon, the dihedral group D12, act on the 24 major- and minor-chords transitively, preserving the type for rotations, and interchanging majors with minors for reflections.

Mathematical Music Theoreticians (MaMuTh-ers for short) call this the T/I-group, and view the rotations of the 12-gon as transpositions Tk:xx+k mod 12, and the reflections as involutions Ik:xx+k mod 12.

Note that the elements of the T/I-group act on the vertices of the 12-gon, from which the action on the chord-triangles follows.

There is another action on the 24 major and minor chords, mapping a chord-triangle to its image under a reflection in one of its three sides.

Note that in this case the reflection Ik used will depend on the root of the chord, so this action on the chords does not come from an action on the vertices of the 12-gon.

There are three such operations: (pictures are taken from Alexandre Popoff’s blog, with the ‘funny names’ removed)

The P-operation is reflection in the longest side of the chord-triangle. As the longest side is preserved, P interchanges the major and minor chord with the same root.

The L-operation is refection in the shortest side. This operation interchanges a major k-chord with a minor k+4 mod 12-chord.

Finally, the R-operation is reflection in the middle side. This operation interchanges a major k-chord with a minor k+9 mod 12-chord.

From this it is already clear that the group generated by P, L and R acts transitively on the 24 major and minor chords, but what is this PLR-group?

If we label the major chords by their root-vertex 1,2,,12 (GAP doesn’t like zeroes), and the corresponding minor chords 13,14,,24, then these operations give these permutations on the 24 chords:


P:=(1,13)(2,14)(3,15)(4,16)(5,17)(6,18)(7,19)(8,20)(9,21)(10,22)(11,23)(12,24)
L:=(1,17)(2,18)(3,19)(4,20)(5,21)(6,22)(7,23)(8,24)(9,13)(10,14)(11,15)(12,16)
R:=(1,22)(2,23)(3,24)(4,13)(5,14)(6,15)(7,16)(8,17)(9,18)(10,19)(11,20)(12,21)

Then GAP gives us that the PLR-group is again isomorphic to D12:


gap> G:=Group(P,L,R);;
gap> Size(G);
24
gap> IsDihedralGroup(G);
true

In fact, if we view both the T/I-group and the PLR-group as subgroups of the symmetric group Sym(24) via their actions on the 24 major and minor chords, these groups are each other centralizers! That is, the T/I-group and PLR-group are dual to each other.

For more on this, there’s a beautiful paper by Alissa Crans, Thomas Fiore and Ramon Satyendra: Musical Actions of Dihedral Groups.

What does this new MaMuTh info learns us more about our Elephant, the Topos of Triads, studied by Thomas Noll?

Last time we’ve seen the eight element triadic monoid T of all affine maps preserving the three tones {0,4,7} of the major 0-chord, computed the subobject classified Ω of the corresponding topos of presheaves, and determined all its six Grothendieck topologies, among which were these three:

Why did we label these Grothendieck topologies (and corresponding elements of Ω) by P, L and R?

We’ve seen that the sheafification of the presheaf {0,4,7} in the triadic topos under the Grothendieck topology jP gave us the sheaf {0,3,4,7}, and these are the tones of the major 0-chord together with those of the minor 0-chord, that is the two chords in the P-orbit of the major 0-chord. The group P is the cyclic group C2.

For the sheafication with respect to jL we found the T-set {0,3,4,7,8,11} which are the tones of the major and minor 0-,4-, and 8-chords. Again, these are exactly the six chords in the P,L-orbit of the major 0-chord. The group P,L is isomorphic to Sym(3).

The jR-topology gave us the T-set {0,1,3,4,6,7,9,10} which are the tones of the major and minor 0-,3-, 6-, and 9-chords, and lo and behold, these are the eight chords in the P,R-orbit of the major 0-chord. The group P,R is the dihedral group D4.

More on this can be found in the paper Commuting Groups and the Topos of Triads by Thomas Fiore and Thomas Noll.

The operations P, L and R on major and minor chords are reflexions in one side of the chord-triangle, so they preserve two of the three tones. There’s a distinction between the P and L operations and R when it comes to how the third tone changes.

Under P and L the third tone changes by one halftone (because the corresponding sides skip an even number of vertices), whereas under R the third tone changes by two halftones (a full tone), see the pictures above.

The P,L=Sym(3) subgroup divides the 24 chords in four orbits of six chords each, three major chords and their corresponding minor chords. These orbits consist of the

  • 0-, 4-, and 8-chords (see before)
  • 1-, 5-, and 9-chords
  • 2-, 6-, and 10-chords
  • 3-, 7-, and 11-chords

and we can view each of these orbits as a cycle tracing six of the eight vertices of a cube with one pair of antipodal points removed.

These four ‘almost’ cubes are the NE-, SE-, SW-, and NW-regions of the Cube Dance Graph, from the paper Parsimonious Graphs by Jack Douthett and Peter Steinbach.

To translate the funny names to our numbers, use this dictionary (major chords are given by a capital letter):



The four extra chords (at the N, E, S, and P places) are augmented triads. They correspond to the triads (0,4,8), (1,5,9), (2,6,10) and (3,7,11).

That is, two triads are connected by an edge in the Cube Dance graph if they share two tones and differ by an halftone in the third tone.

This graph screams for a group or monoid acting on it. Some of the edges we’ve already identified as the action of P and L on the 24 major and minor triads. Because the triangle of an augmented triad is equilateral, we see that they are preserved under P and L.

But what about the edges connecting the regular triads to the augmented ones? If we view each edge as two directed arrows assigned to the same operation, we cannot do this with a transformation because the operation sends each augmented triad to six regular triads.

Alexandre Popoff, Moreno Andreatta and Andree Ehresmann suggest in their paper Relational poly-Klumpenhouwer networks for transformational and voice-leading analysis that one might use a monoid generated by relations, and they show that there is such a monoid with 40 elements acting on the Cube Dance graph.

Popoff claims that usual presheaf toposes, that is contravariant functors to Sets are not enough to study transformational music theory. He suggest to use instead functors to Rel, that is Sets with as the morphisms binary relations, and their compositions.

Another Elephant enters the room…

(to be continued)

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From Mamuth to Elephant

Here, MaMuTh stands for Mathematical Music Theory which analyses the pitch, timing, and structure of works of music.

The Elephant is the nickname for the ‘bible’ of topos theory, Sketches of an Elephant: A Topos Theory Compendium, a two (three?) volume book, written by Peter Johnstone.

How can we get as quickly as possible from the MaMuth to the Elephant, musical illiterates such as myself?

What Mamuth-ers call a pitch class (sounds that are a whole number of octaves apart), is for us a residue modulo 12, as an octave is usually divided into twelve (half)tones.

We’ll just denote them by numbers from 0 to 11, or view them as the vertices of a regular 12-gon, and forget the funny names given to them, as there are several such encodings, and we don’t know a G from a D#.



Our regular 12-gon has exactly 24 symmetries. Twelve rotations, which they call transpositions, given by the affine transformations
Tk : xx+k mod 12
and twelve reflexions, which they call involutions, given by
Ik : xx+k mod 12
What for us is the dihedral group D12 (all symmetries of the 12-gon), is for them the T/I-group (for transpositions/involutions).

Let’s move from individual notes (or pitch classes) to chords (or triads), that is, three notes played together.

Not all triples of notes sound nice when played together, that’s why the most commonly played chords are among the major and minor triads.

A major triad is an ordered triple of elements from Z12 of the form
(n,n+4 mod 12,n+7 mod 12)
and a minor triad is an ordered triple of the form
(n,n+3 mod 12,n+7 mod 12)
where the first entry n is called the root of the triad (or chord) and its funny name is then also the name of that chord.

For us, it is best to view a triad as an inscribed triangle in our regular 12-gon. The triangles of major and minor triads have edges of different lengths, a small one, a middle, and a large one.

Starting from the root, and moving clockwise, we encounter in a major chord-triangle first the middle edge, then the small edge, and finally the large edge. For a minor chord-triangle, we have first the small edge, then the middle one, and finally the large edge.

On the left, two major triads, one with root 0, the other with root 6. On the right, two minor triads, also with roots 0 and 6.



(Btw. if you are interested in the full musical story, I strongly recommend the alpof blog by Alexandre Popoff, from which the above picture is taken.)

Clearly, there are 12 major triads (one for each root), and 12 minor triads.

From the shape of the triad-triangles it is also clear that rotations (transpositions) send major triads to major triads (and minors to minors), and that reflexions (involutions) interchange major with minor triads.

That is, the dihedral group D12 (or if you prefer the T/I-group) acts on the set of 24 major and minor triads, and this action is transitive (an element stabilising a triad-triangle must preserve its type (so is a rotation) and its root (so must be the identity)).

Can we hear the action of the very special group element T6 (the unique non-trivial central element of D12) on the chords?

This action is not only the transposition by three full tones, but also a point-reflexion with respect to the center of the 12-gon (see two examples in the picture above). This point reflexion can be compositionally meaningful to refer to two very different upside-down worlds.

In It’s T6-day, Alexandre Popoff gives several examples. Here’s one of them, the Ark theme in Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“The T6 transformation is heard throughout the map room scene (in particular at 2:47 in the video): that the ark is a dreadful object from a very different world is well rendered by the T6 transposition, with its inherent tritone and point reflection.”

Let’s move on in the direction of the Elephant.

We saw that the only affine map of the form x±x+k fixing say the major 0-triad (0,4,7) is the identity map.

But, we can ask for the collection of all affine maps xax+b fixing this major 0-triad set-wise, that is, such that
{b,4a+b mod 12,7a+b mod 2}{0,4,7}

A quick case-by-case analysis shows that there are just eight such maps: the identity and the constant maps
xx, x0, x4, x7
and the four maps
x3x+7a, x8x+4b, x9x+4, x4x

Compositions of such maps again preserve the set {0,4,7} so they form a monoid, and a quick inspection with GAP learns that a and b generate this monoid.


gap> a:=Transformation([10,1,4,7,10,1,4,7,10,1,4,7]);;
gap> b:=Transformation([12,8,4,12,8,4,12,8,4,12,8,4]);;
gap> gens:=[a,b];;
gap> T:=Monoid(gens);
gap> Size(T);
8

The monoid T is the triadic monoid of Thomas Noll’s paper The topos of triads.

The monoid T can be seen as a one-object category (with endomorphisms the elements of T). The corresponding presheaf topos is then the category of all sets equipped with a right T-action.

Actually, Noll considers just one such presheaf (and its sub-presheaves) namely F=Z12 with the action of T by affine maps described before.

He is interested in the sheafifications of these presheaves with respect to Grothendieck topologies, so we have to describe those.

For any monoid category, the subobject classifier Ω is the set of all right ideals in the monoid.

Using the GAP sgpviz package we can draw its Cayley graph (red coloured vertices are idempotents in the monoid, the blue vertex is the identity map).


gap> DrawCayleyGraph(T);



The elements of T (vertices) which can be connected by oriented paths (in both ways) in the Cayley graph, such as here {2,4}, {3,7} and {5,6,8}, will generate the same right ideal in T, so distinct right ideals are determined by unidirectional arrows, such as from 1 to 2 and 3 or from {2,4} to 5, or from {3,7} to 6.

This gives us that Ω consists of the following six elements:

  • 0=
  • C={5,6,8}=a.Tb.T
  • L={2,4,5,6,8}=a.T
  • R={3,7,5,6,8}=b.T
  • P={2,3,4,5,6,7,8}=a.Tb.T
  • 1=T

As a subobject classifier Ω is itself a presheaf, so wat is the action of the triad monoid T on it? For all AΩ, and sT the action is given by A.s={tT|s.tA} and it can be read off from the Cayley-graph.

Ω is a Heyting algebra of which the inclusions, and logical operations can be summarised in the picture below, using the Hexboards and Heytings-post.



In this case, Grothendieck topologies coincide with Lawvere-Tierney topologies, which come from closure operators j : ΩΩ which are order-increasing, idempotent, and compatible with the T-action and with the , that is,

  • if AB, then j(A)j(B)
  • j(j(A))=j(A)
  • j(A).t=j(A.t)
  • j(AB)=j(A)j(B)

Colouring all cells with the same j-value alike, and remaining cells A with j(A)=A coloured yellow, we have six such closure operations j, that is, Grothendieck topologies.



The triadic monoid T acts via affine transformations on the set of pitch classes Z12 and we’ve defined it such that it preserves the notes {0,4,7} of the major (0,4,7)-chord, that is, {0,4,7} is a subobject of Z12 in the topos of T-sets.

The point of the subobject classifier Ω is that morphisms to it classify subobjects, so there must be a T-equivariant map χ making the diagram commute (vertical arrows are the natural inclusions)
Misplaced &

What does the morphism χ do on the other pitch classes? Well, it send an element kZ12={1,2,,12=0} to

  • 1 iff k{0,4,7}
  • P iff a(k) and b(k) are in {0,4,7}
  • L iff a(k){0,4,7} but b(k) is not
  • R iff b(k){0,4,7} but a(k) is not
  • C iff neither a(k) nor b(k) is in {0,4,7}

Remember that a and b are the transformations (images of (1,2,,12))

a:=Transformation([10,1,4,7,10,1,4,7,10,1,4,7]);;
b:=Transformation([12,8,4,12,8,4,12,8,4,12,8,4]);;

so we see that

  • 0,1,4 are mapped to 1
  • 3 is mapped to P
  • 8,11 are mapped to L
  • 1,6,9,10 are mapped to R
  • 2,5 are mapped to C

Finally, we can compute the sheafification of the sub-presheaf {0,4,7} of Z with respect to a Grothendieck topology j: it consists of the set of those kZ12 such that j(χ(k))=1.

The musically interesting Grothendieck topologies are jP,jL and jR with corresponding sheaves:

  • For jP we get the sheaf {0,3,4,7} which Mamuth-ers call a Major-Minor Mixture as these are the notes of both the major and minor 0-triads
  • For jL we get {0,3,4,7,8,11} which is an example of an Hexatonic scale (six notes), here they are the notes of the major and minor 0, 4 and 8-triads
  • For jR we get {0,1,3,4,6,7,9,10} which is an example of an Octatonic scale (eight notes), here they are the notes of the major and minor 0, 3, 6 and 9-triads

We could have played the same game starting with the three notes of any other major triad.

Those in the know will have noticed that so far I’ve avoided another incarnation of the dihedral D12 group in music, namely the PLR-group, which explains the notation for the elements of the subobject classifier Ω, but this post is already way too long.

(to be continued…)

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